Scientists fear MMR link to autism

New American research shows that there could be a link between the controversial MMR triple vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children.

The study appears to confirm the findings of British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who caused a storm in 1998 by suggesting a possible link.

Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease – and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus.

Walker says the new research does not support the connection, and he notes that the results have not even been published in a peer-reviewed journal. “Even if we showed association (between measles virus and bowel disease) and we published it in a peer-reviewed journal, the conclusion will be simply that there is measles virus in the gut of a large number of children who have regressive autism and bowel disease. End of story.

“We haven’t done anything to demonstrate that the measles virus is causing autism or even causing bowel disease.”

Walker explains that exploring the causes of chronic bowel disease in autistic children is the major impetus for his research. “There are lots of viruses in the gut, and any one of them could be causing inflammation. If it truly is from a vaccine and this virus causes inflammation and a chronic bowel condition in some susceptible children, then that’s something that needs to be known.”

As I understand it, there were severe questions about the sequencing of the virus in the study — sufficiently severe that paper was never published.